


Honey and apples (oh, what auburn weather)

by thistleghost



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (Not Literally But...), Cats, Character Death, Family, Food, Found Family, Happy Ending, Healing, Hurt Otabek, Katsuki Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov are Yuri Plisetsky's Parents, Literature Otabek, Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sad Boys Falling in Love, Sad Yuri, Yuri Baking, happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistleghost/pseuds/thistleghost
Summary: Yuri is lost.Otabek is a net or an anchor or whatever it is that catches you and pulls you back into your own skin and reminds you how to be yourself, reminds you that being yourself is a pretty good thing.Love creeps in slowly on cat-feet and builds a home all around them.





	1. Chapter 1

Everything slips away. Time slows down, the room fades into white fog around him. His own heartbeat is a dull thud, and then even that is replaced with the frantic ticking and beeping and wheezing of the hulking machines crowded around them.

Nothing feels real except the hand in his own. It’s cool and heavy in his, but each callus and wrinkle is still there—he knows this hand so well. His focus narrows to this—his grandpa’s fingers, the moth-soft flutter on the inside of his wrist, where his skin is so papery thin that Yuri can see the network of his veins like rivers on a map. He strokes over those veins, tries to push life into them, prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that the shiver of his grandpa’s pulse won’t still.

He doesn’t know how long he sits like that. The only thing that matters is holding on. At first he speaks, tells stories, sings songs his grandpa used to sing to him when he was small and afraid of the night. But at some point the words fall apart and all he can do is clutch his grandpa’s hand in his.

His mind drifts in the fog, and he remembers all the times he’s held this hand fast, all the times it’s been his lifeline. When he’d first been learning to skate, and his feet were wobbly on the ice. When he was sick with the flu and so dizzy he couldn’t walk across the apartment without support. 

When he had sat on the couch with his grandpa, both of them staring at the blank TV screen as Yuri whispered that he was pretty sure he loved boys the way other boys loved girls. That time his grandpa had nodded, still not looking at him, but then his hand—warm and heavy and reassuring, had settled over Yuri’s and Yuri had felt hot tears flow from his eyes and allowed himself to collapse against his grandpa’s shoulder and be pulled tight against his chest and rocked like he was still a baby.

Yuuri and Viktor arrive after the first day—they’d flown back to Russia to be with him, but he can’t even speak to them. They talk to him in soft voices, stroke his hair and hold cups of hot tea and broth to his lips until he drinks. When Yuuri first sees him he wraps his arms around Yuri and cries into his hair. Yuri cries with him, silently, and Yuuri doesn’t pull away until Yuri’s tears have dried sticky on his cheeks. Viktor paces around the room, on the phone with a doctor recommended by Yakov—the best heart specialist in Russia. He tugs at his hair until silver strands loosen and fall to the ground, shining white like snow in the harsh hospital light.

That night they try to get him to come home with them. Yuuri crouches down between grandpa’s bed and Yuri’s chair, clasps Yuri’s free hand in his and stares at him with his deep brown, gentle eyes.

“Yuri, will you listen to me?” he says softly, and his voice is so gentle and kind that Yuri wants to cry again, or stab himself with the dull butter knife lying on his untouched plate of bland hospital food. Yuri can’t speak, but he nods, just once, for Yuuri.

“OK. Thank you,” says Yuuri. “I know you’re really scared right now, Yuri. I know what this feels like—I was with my grandmother when she—I mean, I was there with her, in the hospital. It’s hard to see someone you love like this.” He looks at Yuri’s grandpa, who looks shrunken and very still under the white sheets.

“So, I know it feels like you have to be here—like you have to _do_ _something._ But there’s nothing you can do right now that will make him better, OK? The doctors are doing everything they can. And your grandpa wouldn’t want you to be here like this, making yourself sick and not eating and not sleeping—the reason you’re here is because you love him and he loves you Yuri, he wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.” Yuri looks away. He feels like Yuuri’s eyes are dissecting him, cutting down into the soft fragile bits of him.

Viktor slips in from the hallway with another cup of tea that Yuri won’t drink. He sighs softly when he sees the two of them, Yuri frozen and bone-white, Yuuri earnest and wet-eyed on the ground.

Viktor kneels down beside Yuuri, wrapping an arm around him and feeling how his husband is shuddering, the fine tremor that runs through his whole body. He curls his hand gently over Yuuri’s neck, tangles his fingers in the feathery hairs there.

“Oh, love,” he whispers, and he’s talking to both of them.

Yuuri slumps into Viktor’s side, his breath shaky. He tries to talk again—“Yuri. Please. I promise everything is going to be OK but you’re just hurting—“ his voice breaks off and he struggles to breathe. Viktor’s heart aches for this tender man who can’t stand to see anyone in pain, who feels the pain of those he loves like it’s his own.

He looks up at Yuri, whose eyes are far away. He’s clenching his grandpa’s hand so tightly that his knuckles are white and his fingernails have pressed tiny crescent bruises into the old man’s fragile skin.

“Yurio,” he says, trying to sound like he’s sure of himself. “My Yuuri is right. Nikolai wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself. We want you to come home with us. Just for the nights. We’ll come back every day and the doctor I called will be here soon. We’re doing everything we can, so please, let’s go home.”

Yuri stares at him blankly.

“Yuri?” begs Viktor.

Yuri’s lips, cracked from dehydration and his own biting teeth, open slightly. He makes a sound that isn’t a word, and then shakes his head, shifting his grip on his grandpa’s skin so that their fingers are woven together too tightly to break apart.

“Yuri,” Viktor wants to scoop him up and carry him out to the taxi that’s waiting for them, but he’s too much grown up for that to work. Viktor misses the days when this boy before him didn’t have to be a man. “Let’s just go home,” he says, almost stern.

“No,” croaks Yuri. His voice is rough and raw. He tilts his chin towards Nikolai’s frail body in the bed—“home,” he gasps, blinking eyes that are red and sticky but unable to cry any more tears. “Home.”

Beside Viktor, Yuuri is trying to stifle his own sobs. He feels so weak. He should be stronger for Yuri, should know the right thing to say to make him come home with them and sleep in a proper bed, curl up under their softest blankets in a place he feels safe. Viktor squeezes his shoulder.

“I think we have to let him stay, _lyubov moya_ ,” he murmurs, soft enough that it’s just for Yuuri to hear. “You need to sleep. We’re not doing any good here and Yuri is stubborn—he’s not going to leave. We’ll be back in the morning, as soon as they’ll let us in—Yuuri? Does that sound all right?”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say. He’s so tired. He’s helpless here.

He nods his head slowly and then Viktor is helping him to his feet. Viktor reaches out to squeeze Yuri’s shoulder. “Yurio, we’re going to be here with you. You’re not alone—we’re your home too. And please call us if you need anything—even in the middle of the night. I saw my number in your phone. I think it was put in there as “old man” somehow—I’m sure it was a mistake—but anyway—“ Yuuri chuckles wetly but Yurio is lost to them, staring blankly ahead at the white room.

Viktor wraps his arm around Yuuri’s waist. “Let’s go home, Yuuri,” he says. They head out into the hallway—it’s empty at this time of night, the only person in sight a green-smocked cleaner mopping the tiles.

It’s not until they’re curled together in the back of the taxi, wrapped around each other to stay safe, that Yuuri speaks again.

“Nikolai will be all right, won’t he? When you talked to the doctor—he said he could fix him, didn’t he?”

Viktor thinks of his conversation with the doctor—the way the man had refused to look him in the eyes as he spoke, how flat his voice had been.

He clutches Yuuri close to him. “He said it’s his second heart attack so—“ Yuuri whimpers, and Viktor strokes his hair. “Love, he says there’s a good chance that he—”and then he stops himself, wondering if Yuuri can handle any more bad news and stress tonight.

“He has a good chance, Yuuri,” he says. “A really good chance.”

He’s not sure Yuuri believes him, but he doesn’t ask anything else. They sit in silence, thinking their own thoughts as the city streams past the windows, a blur of dim lights and drizzly rain.

When they get home, their apartment smells like dust. They haven’t lived in it for months and it doesn’t feel quite like home. The beds on their sheet are crisp but cold, and there’s no Makkachin to greet them when they unlock the door. Makkachin is in Japan, staying with Yuuri’s family until they can come back—now, Viktor doesn’t know how long that will be.

Neither of them can eat, so they undress and slip into bed, curling tight together, skin against skin. Yuuri slips into sleep first and Viktor lies awake for a while, listening to the beautiful, familiar sound of his breathing at night and thinking that _this_ is home and praying that Yuri won’t lose the only family, the only home, he’s ever had. Then he sleeps too, safe and sound with Yuuri curled into him. In the quiet of their bedroom, their breathing slowly comes together until they inhale and exhale in sync. Their hearts follow, chasing each other’s rhythm until they beat as one.

Alone in the hospital, Yuri holds his grandfather’s hand tight in his and fights the heaviness threatening to pull him under. He hasn’t slept in more than two days. He feels like a human statue, like his bones are ossifying in place, locking him into this chair. The beeping machines keep beeping, and he can’t tell if they’re getting faster or slower—his brain can’t make sense of anything anymore—each shrill beep sounds like an alarm, jolts his heart with fear that this is it—that his grandpa’s gone.

He blinks once and then forces himself to open his eyes again, stare down at his grandpa’s beloved face. He looks pale but peaceful, his tight mouth soft and slack as he rests. Yuri tries to memorize every curve and wrinkle of his face, and then thinks that he doesn’t need to do that because of course he’ll wake up and smile at Yuri and everything will be OK again. Underneath his eyelids, Nikolai’s eyes flick back and forth, and Yuri hopes he’s dreaming something good.

At last, Yuri succumbs. His grip doesn’t weaken but his neck lolls to the side and he sleeps. He doesn’t dream at all.

Sometime early in the morning, before the sun has risen, Nikolai’s soul succumbs to something stronger than sleep and floats up out of his body. It caresses Yuri’s cheek and strokes through his matted hair and then it nudges at the walls of the room until it finds the place where the window frame doesn’t quite line up and a little bit of cool air is blowing through. The soul hesitates a bit, but then it is tugged too hard to resist, pulled through that little crack and up, up, up into the night sky—clear now, velvet black and studded with diamond-bright stars.

Yuri’s hand is still wrapped around his grandpa’s when Nikolai passes away. He doesn’t wake up. Drifting in dreamless blackness, he doesn’t notice that the beloved fingers he clutches so tightly are becoming cold and stiff as marble. He doesn’t notice that the frail pulse is gone, that the veins are drained and sunken.

Back at home, Viktor and Yuuri wake up early and drink tea in the thin morning sunlight. Yuuri hasn’t slept well, and the thin skin under his eyes looks bruised. Viktor strokes his cheeks. “I can go alone, Yuuri. Why don’t you sleep in a bit longer?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No. I think he needs both of us.”

Viktor sighs but nods his head.

It’s early enough that they have to walk, but the hospital isn’t too far away and the crisp morning air is good, it makes them feel alive.

Viktor notices the way Yuuri hesitates before stepping through the door to the hospital, shifting slightly on his feet, taking a deep gulp of air as if he can hold it inside him and avoid breathing in the sad, sick smell of the hospital. He gives him a weak smile, and the corner of Yuuri’s mouth turns up, barely.

At the check-in desk they tell the receptionist they’re here to see Nikolai. She clicks through a few lists on her computer, tapping efficiently away. Then her hands, small white hands with round pink fingernails, go still on the keyboard. She turns to them with wide, sad eyes.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be the one to tell you—but it’s bad news. Mr. Plisetsky passed away in the night—it was so fast the machines didn’t even catch it and I’m sure it was painless. I can send you to the room now and a doctor will meet you there.” She looks down at her still hands for a moment, looks back up at them, biting her lips so that they turn pale and bloodless. “I’m so sorry.”

Viktor gasps, but Yuuri is silent, stunned. Nothing feels real. The receptionist’s high, anguished voice seems like it’s coming from far above him—Yuuri is drowning, sinking into deep blue water where everything is still and soft. Her voice is distorted, echoey, and he fights the urge to lift up his hands and cover his ears to protect himself from the eerie sound.

He speaks without even noticing the words are coming out. “What about Yuri? Where’s Yuri?” He’s almost shouting, and at any other time he would be ashamed of his harsh tone. Now he wants to reach out and shake the woman until she gives him a reason for all this, an answer that actually makes sense.

The receptionist looks at her computer screen as if it will tell her where Yuri is, but then shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Maybe he’s still in the room? Please—there’s a doctor waiting for you. He can explain everything.”

Viktor thanks her, and then he’s pulling Yuuri against his side and walking quickly down the hallway.

Yuuri wants to run. He needs to find Yuri, now. He’s crying and the back of his throat tastes like salt. He’s crying for Nikolai, who he’d only met a few times. He had been a gruff, stern man whose endless love for Yuri exposed his soft heart. But more than that, Yuuri is crying for Yuri, who has suffered so much loss in his young life. He’s the same as his grandfather—covered in a prickly outer shell, trying desperately to hide how gentle he really is inside.

The doctor is in the hallway outside the room. Viktor turns to him, his face stony. Yuuri breaks away and slips inside the room, where Yuri is bent over the bed, his head resting on his grandpa’s chest, still clutching the man’s cold hand in one of his. He’s not even making any sounds, just lying there with his eyes blank and glassy and red-rimmed. Tears trickle out slowly, slide across his pale skin and soak into the fabric of Nikolai’s cotton shirt. He looks barely alive.

Yuuri kneels next to him, strokes his hair. “Yuri?” he asks.

Yuri whimpers.

Yuuri keeps petting his hair. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have words for this. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry” he chokes out. Yuri stares through him.

At last he turns his head to look directly at Yuuri. He gasps in a ragged breath.

“Why do I always lose everyone I care about. _Everyone_ , Yuuri,” he sobs out. “First my dad left me, then my mom, now grandpa and I’m so tired of it, I can’t do this again, I’m all alone—“ he trails off and buries his face in the sheets again, tucking his head against his grandpa’s shoulder. His sharp shoulder blades jerk with each painful sob.

Yuuri wishes he could comfort him better. He rubs circles into his back and bites his own lips until he tastes metallic blood. He and Viktor should have been here last night. Why did they go home? Yuri needed them and they left; they left him just like everyone else.

“Yuri,” says Yuuri. His voice is suddenly strong. “Listen to me. I want you to listen to me. I’m so sorry that your parents are gone. I’m so sorry about your grandfather. But you’re not all alone, OK? Please, don’t ever say that. I’m here, and Viktor is here. You have us, and Otabek, and Yakov, and Lilia—“ the sobbing gets harder, and Yuuri wonders if he’s helping at all.  

“And you have Mari—all of my family, really. They love you. We all do. I promise you’ll always have a home, and—and I know you won’t believe me, but you’re going to be happy again. It won’t feel like this forever.”

Yuri goes still and limp under Yuuri’s hand. A long, hollow sigh shudders out of him.

“I believe you,” he whispers. “I’ve done it before—pulled myself together, after. It’s just that it gets harder, not easier, every time. And I’m so fucking tired.”

“We’ll be with you,” says Yuuri. “I promise.”

Viktor comes in with the doctor behind him. He reaches down to give Yuri a strained half-hug. “We’ll take care of everything, Yurotchka,” he says. “You won’t have to worry.”

Yuri gives an awful, bitter laugh.

Viktor looks to Yuuri with deer-in-headlights eyes, wide and helpless. Yuuri gives a small shrug of his shoulders. He’s helpless here, too. Neither one of them can fix this.

The doctor is pacing in the background. He approaches Viktor and murmurs something, too low for Yuuri to hear. Viktor’s eyebrows draw in and his mouth pinches into a thin line.

The doctor makes an odd little bow and exits the room. Viktor tilts his head towards the door. Yuuri looks down at Yurio, who is still and silent, still hunched over his grandfather’s body. He smooths a hand down Yuri’s back one more time and follows Viktor into the hallway. His husband is leaning against the wall, his head tilted back and his eyes half closed. His silver hair is tousled, hanging down over his tired eyes.

Yuuri leans into him, not even hugging him, just pressing their bodies together, feeling his warmth.

Viktor speaks after a while. “The doctor says we have an hour and then we have to take Yuri so they can move Nikolai to the funeral home. I already made all the arrangements—I just don’t know how to tell him that he has to say goodbye.”

Viktor sounds almost calm, until the end. His voice trembles, and Yuuri can feel that he is breaking down. Viktor is always so good at taking care of everyone around him—it’s easy to forget that he needs to be taken care of, too. For now, though, their priority is Yuri.

“OK, Viktor. It’s OK,” Yuuri says. “I’ll talk to Yuri. I’ll get him to come home. Could you go find a taxi and wait for us outside? And maybe order in something—udon would be good, I think.”

Viktor nods, squeezes Yuuri’s hand, and sets off to find the taxi, his phone already pressed to his ear. Yuuri is sure that he is ordering the best udon in the city, that he has already called a top grief-counselor, and that he’s told Yakov Yuri won’t be training this week.

Yuuri finds Yuri in the same position as before. For a second he thinks he’s asleep, but then he sees a shard of blue-green eye peering up at him.

“Hey, Yuri” he murmurs. “Do you think you’re ready to go home?”

He’s expecting a fight. He’s expecting more tears. But Yuri just unfolds himself, strokes a hand over his grandpa’s cheek, and turns to Yuuri.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go home.”


	2. Chapter 2

Yuuri and Viktor always treat him like a child. This time they’re even worse. Yuuri walks him to the taxi with an arm around his shoulders and settles him in the backseat, clicking his seatbelt into place and covering him in his own jacket. The jacket smells like green tea and Viktor. It’s comforting. Viktor tells the driver to crank the heat up all the way.

It makes Yuri feel small and hazy, like when he was young and had a fever and grandpa would let him spend the day swimming in his big bed, staring at the eggshell ceiling until he fell asleep.

Normally, being treated like a child makes Yuri so angry he has to bite his tongue to keep from swearing at Viktor and Yuuri. Sometimes even that isn’t enough and a few curses slip out. Now, he’s so drained he doesn’t think he could manage to take care of himself, and he’s glad they’re there.

They talk to one another softly, their words weaving into a cocoon around him. He lets his eyes slip closed and stops trying to make out their words.

Yuri never believed in true love until he saw Viktor with Yuuri. It’s in the way they look at each other, their eyes overflowing with light. It’s in the way they touch, soft and slow, or sly and greedy when they don’t think anyone’s watching. But it’s in their voices, too. Each word they say sounds like love. Their voices together sound like love, thick and sweet as honey, dripping down over Yuri like a golden rain. He kind of wants to stay in the too-hot taxi forever, listening to Viktor and Yuuri speak love.

When they’re home Yuuri leads him up the stairs while Viktor pays the driver. An insulated food delivery box sits just outside the door to their flat. Yuuri grabs the box and fidgets with the keys until the door clicks open, and then Yuri manages to shuffle in on his own. He’s been here so many times before that he knows where to go to find a soft knitted blanket and an extra pair of sweatpants. He toes off his shoes, changes into the sweatpants, wraps the blanket around himself, and settles into the corner of their couch, balling himself up until he’s as small as he can be.

Yuuri brings the food to the kitchen and finds some clean bowls and spoons. He puts on a kettle and pours the udon into the bowls while the tea is steeping. When it’s done he sets Yuri’s food on a tray and brings it to the couch.

“Yuri,” he murmurs. “I know you’re not asleep yet. Eat some soup, please. It will be good for you to have something in your stomach.”

Yuri pokes his head out of the blankets. He feels so sick, his stomach is all knotted and achy. He doesn’t know if it’s sadness or hunger. The soup is steaming. He can smell the broth, imagine the softness of the thick noodles. But something about the saltiness of it makes him feel worse—he’s drunk too many of his own tears in the last few days.

“Just tea,” he croaks.

Yuuri gives a little sigh but hands him the mug.  
“Careful,” he reminds. “It’s still hot.”

Yuri drinks the tea sip by slow sip, savoring the bitterness of it. It’s brewed too strong, just the way he likes it.

He feels almost at peace for a moment and then he remembers and the grief comes back like a wave, crashing over him. He takes a deep breath. He’s done this before. He’s strong enough.

Yuri tries to remember what it was like when his dad left. He had been just a baby, not even a whole year old. Had he noticed? Had he missed his father’s deep voice, his big warm hands, his laugh, his smell, his blue-green eyes?

Perhaps he had been so small he hadn’t noticed the loss. But he had been old enough to fear it when his mother went to the hospital. He had seen her lying there in that white bed, seen her cough and cough until her body shook, until flecks of red came out of her and splashed onto the white sheets. He had held her hand, begged her to stay with him. He remembered climbing into bed with her, curling tight against her feverish, damp body. The nurses had pulled him off, screaming and crying, and passed him to his grandpa.

He hardly knew his grandpa then. He was just the man with the scratchy whiskers who sent a lemon cake on Easter and dropped by for Christmas, once in a while. His grandpa must not have known what to do with him, either, this armful of squalling baby—all beating fists and kicking feet. He was like a wounded animal, so hurt and frightened that he turned vicious.

But his grandpa hadn’t let him go. He had held him tight and rocked him until his mother’s coughing fit passed and then he had sung to them both until she fell asleep. “Let’s go now, Yura,” he had said. “We’ll let your mama sleep for now, and get you out of this hospital. Have you ever gone skating?”

For weeks, grandpa sung his mother to sleep and took him skating at the old rink just half a block away from the hospital. They rented beat-up skates and went around and around in wobbly circles. Grandpa was better than Yuri but he caught up fast. “I think,” grandpa had said “I think, sometimes, that this is the closest thing we have to flying.”

Now, Yuri has flown around the world. He’s even been skydiving. But somehow, still, he thinks his grandpa was right. There is nothing more like flying than the smooth glide, the speed and beauty and freedom, of skating.

The day Yuri’s mother died they went skating. Yuri’s tears fell drip drip drip onto the ice and froze, became a part of it. His skates cut into the ice, leaving tracks through his own tears. “Why did she leave me?” he asked his grandpa. But he knew it was a dumb question. He swiped his mitten hand under his eyes and bit his lips. “Nevermind,” he said. “I think I know.”

His grandpa turned to him with soft grey eyes. “Why is that, then, Yura?”

“She wanted to go flying,” said Yuri.

His grandpa’s mouth opened, and then he smiled. “Oh,” he said. “of course she did.”

When he lost his father he was too young to really care. When he lost his mother he was young enough to comfort himself with make-believe. Now, he’s old enough to care, and too old to comfort himself with anything. His grandpa is gone gone gone. Yuri is an orphan. He has never felt more alone, more lost in the world.

Viktor comes and sits on the couch beside him.

“Do you want to sleep, Yuri?” he asks.

Yuri wants to sleep forever, and never wake up.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good,” says Viktor. “We made up the guest bedroom but our door will be open all night. If you need anything we’re right there. You don’t have to knock or anything. Just come right in. You can even sleep with us if you want—Yuuri’s so nice to sleep with, he’s so soft and warm and—“ Viktor flutters his eyes exaggeratedly.

Yuri gives a weak chuckle. He knows Viktor’s putting on a show to make him smile and he’s tired enough that it’s better to just humor him and get the play over with.

Viktor smiles at him but then he looks serious for a moment. “Really, Yuri, we’re here for you,” he says. “You’re our family, OK? Where would we be without our Yurio?”

Something catches in Yuri’s throat at the word family. He doesn’t have a family. They’ve all gone away.

He manages to make a sound that isn’t a word, and wraps his blanket tighter around himself before heading down the hallway to the guest bedroom.

The bed is covered with more blankets and a plush, life-sized Makkachin doll is nestled between the plump pillows. Yuri turns off the lights and burrows under the blankets. He tucks his face into the silk-soft fur of the stuffed animal and wishes the real Makkachin were here.

His eyes are almost shut when a soft pulse of white light shines from the little table next to the bed. He gropes blindly towards the light, fingers brushing across smooth, cool glass. It’s his phone. He must have left it at the hospital and Yuuri must have brought it back and put it here for him.

He hesitates before pushing the home button. His screen lights up, one notification blinking softly at him. It’s a text from Otabek.

[Yura. I’m here when you’re ready.]

Yuri feels his heart ripping apart inside his chest. Yuuri and Viktor must have told Otabek about grandpa. He can’t imagine calling Otabek, seeing his smooth features contorted with pity for Yuri. He can’t imagine his friend seeing him like this, so fragile. Otabek had said he had the eyes of a soldier. Now those soldier eyes are wet and empty, weak.

He brushes his fingertip over the message. Yura. Otabek is the only one beside grandpa who has ever called him that. Viktor calls him Yurio or Yuratchka. Yuuri calls him just Yuri, mostly. Mari called him tiger, once. He had liked that.

It’s good to remember that there is still someone in the world who knows him as Yura, though. It feels like an anchor.

Yuri sighs and tucks the phone under his pillow. His eyes are sticky and sore, so heavy that he can’t bear to keep them open any longer. He pulls the blankets closer around himself and drifts off into darkness.

He wakes up again in the same darkness. The moon is hanging full and white outside his window, and the shadows all around him are blue. He aches everywhere.

He pokes around until he finds his phone and then stares at the lit-up screen, holding his breath. He wishes Otabek would just call him. He wishes he was here. He wishes he didn’t need him as much as he does.

He scrolls through their texts. He saves them all. The last one hovers at the bottom, waiting for him to reply.

[Yura. I’m here when you’re ready.]

Yuri brushes a finger over it. What should he say? He doesn’t want Otabek to comfort him. He doesn’t want to tell him how it felt to wake up to his grandfather lying cold and stiff, to wake up still clutching his hand but knowing that he was no longer there. He doesn’t want to cry in front of him, not with eight hours and two screens between them.

He taps to Otabek’s contact screen, where he can see the call button. _Just call_ , he tells himself. _Just call_. But he can’t. His finger hovers just above the green button, trembling.

He’s about to just put the phone down and bury himself under his blankets when the screen blinks. _Accept call?_ it asks. His finger slips.

Then Otabek fills the screen. Yuri doesn’t know what time it is in Almaty. Really late, he guesses. Otabek looks tired. His hair is messy and his skin is pale but his eyes are warm and brown and steady. Yuri looks into them and tries not to cry. _Not again,_ he begs.

Otabek looks at Yuri, curled up small amidst a tangle of white sheets, and makes a sad little shape with his mouth. “Yura,” he breathes. He doesn’t say how sorry he is. He doesn’t ask Yuri how he’s feeling. He just waits for him to speak.

Yuri keeps looking at those gentle eyes and the tears come, rolling hot and fast down his cheeks. He’s so ashamed. His throat clenches up and he whimpers, rocking back and forth in place. _God_ , _this is pitiful_ , he thinks.

Otabek hums something soft, like a lullaby. “It’s OK, Yura,” he says. “You can cry. I’m here.”

After a long time he starts speaking, slow and smooth.

“Today I ended practice early. I almost never do that during training season but I skated well. My coach was happy. Normally I go home in the dark and I ride the bus, but today it was still light out. It’s been a warm fall here. The trees are just turning now, and the sky was perfect blue. No clouds. I got my motorcycle and went out past the city and there’s farms out there, and one of them had an orchard and you could pay and pick your own apples. So I went and picked apples and bought cider and honey and jam. And then when I came home I had apples with honey. They tasted like fall. Like the last moment before everything changes. I know that’s not a flavor. The honey was good. It made me think of you—do you remember you bought me those—ah, what was it called—vatrushka, when I came last year? And you said they were best with honey.”

Yuri is just staring at him, tears streaming silently down his face. Otabek’s voice is so soft and warm. He pauses for a moment, like he’s not sure what to say next, then continues. “And, Yuri, did I ever tell you about my neighbor Katrina? She’s an old woman and she’s always frowning but really she’s kind. She brings me soup on Sunday. She doesn’t think I take care of myself. When she moved in she had a big bag with roses printed on it and I think there was a cat in the bag—I don’t know, somehow she has a cat, maybe she stole it or something. It’s a big white and orange cat with a fat belly. Katrina says it’s going to have kittens but I’ve seen her letting it drink cream out of her teacups so maybe it’s just fat—“

Otabek trails off. He reaches a hand towards Yuri, wanting to touch his hair, and then pulls back, remembering that they’re far apart. Yuri almost smiles at that. He sniffs. The tears are slowing now, and he’s left with a red nose and glassy eyes.

Yuri opens his mouth and closes it. Otabek waits.

“It’s just that—” Yuri chokes out, “It’s just that I’m all alone now. I mean, I know I’m not. I just don’t even know what I am if I’m not part of him. He was all I had of my mom—he taught me how to skate, Beka. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No,” says Otabek. “Tell me now, Yuri. I want to hear.”

Yuri tilts his head down. It’s late. Otabek should sleep—he has practice tomorrow. He shouldn’t be spending his time taking care of Yuri. That’s not his job. But the words are crowding Yuri’s chest. He feels too-warm and sick, light and heavy at the same time. He feels like he’s floating, untethered. He wishes Otabek were here so much that it’s a physical ache in his body.

“I guess he didn’t really know how to skate, when we started. Maybe we taught each other. We would go when my mom was sick. It was hard for me to be in the hospital day after day. It didn’t matter how much I loved her or how tight I held her hand. Near the end she just slept. I think they put a lot of medicine in her to make it easier. I never really knew him before then, but when she first went to the hospital he came and brought her flowers, white lilies, and piroshky for all of us. It was so strange to see him—he was so big and I was so small. He was like a bear, like some forest giant from a fairytale and my mother kept telling me, ‘Yuri, it’s your grandpa. Look, Yuri. Your grandpa’s come home,’ but I didn’t know what to think. I never knew I had a grandpa at all.”

Yuri bites his lip.

“I didn’t know what a grandpa was. It was like skating—we learned together, or we taught each other, or things just fell into place. I was this little urchin. I was so bad, I bit him once because he wouldn’t let me stay out at night and all my friends were going somewhere—maybe just a restaurant, but he didn’t want me walking home alone in the dark, and so I bit him. I was twelve. It was such a kid thing to do but that’s how I always was, and he still took me in. He didn’t have to. He could’ve just given me to the orphanage or let me run away or—. But he didn’t, he made sure I had a home.”

Yuri looks at Otabek, who is listening to him with a soft smile and sad eyes.

“He loved you, Yuri,” he says. “Of course he wouldn’t have sent you to the orphanage. You were his.”

Yuri gulps and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I know. I think that’s why—I won’t ever have that again, that kind of family. He gave me everything. I don’t know who I am without him.”

"You’ll figure it out,” Otabek tells him. “You have time.”

Yuri nods again, slowly.

“Anyhow,” he murmurs. “Thank you. I’m sorry for all this. I didn’t mean to take up your whole night.”

Otabek shakes his head at him. “Yura, I’m your friend. I want to do this—be here for you. Whatever you need, OK? It makes me happy.”

Yuri wrinkles his nose. “OK, Beka.”

“Will you sleep now?” Otabek asks.

“Yeah,” Yuri whispers. He pulls the sheets closer around him, lets his head nestle into the soft pillows. On his screen, Otabek yawns.

“You too,” he reminds.

Otabek smiles. “Yeah, of course. I’ve got to brush my teeth first.”

Yuri nods, his eyelashes already slipping closed.

He says something that might be goodbye or goodnight. Probably it is just a soft gooddddd followed by a breath.

Otabek watches his eyes close, watches his breathing even out. His pink mouth parts. Otabek imagines the soft little whistle of his sleeping breaths.

“Goodnight, Yura. Little soldier,” he says, and then he turns of the phone and goes to brush his teeth.

Yuri, half-asleep under his covers, is already slipping into a dream of riding on Otabek’s motorcycle, pressed tight against his back. The air is sharp and spicy, and the world around them flies past in a blur of rain-slicked copper leaves and blue sky.

The part of his mind that is still awake wonders at how Otabek, who is so quiet and gentle, can put him back together just by listening, by telling a few stories about apples and spotted cats. Yuri decides that it’s a special sort of magic, a kind of magic that only Otabek has.

Eventually even that last thinking part of his brain gives in to sleep, and he falls fully into his dream. Now it is different. Otabek is kneeling in a field of cut hay, sweet and musty smelling in the damp air.

Yuri runs to him, sprinting across the field. Something in his belly is tugging him, pulling him to Otabek with a magnetic force. He feels so cold. He needs Otabek to hold him. He keeps running, reaching out his arms, but Otabek is always just out of reach. He’s panting, almost crying. Otabek looks up at him, his mouth open, his lips shaping Yuri’s name without sound. He holds his arms out, and Yuri can feel the imagined heat of him against his skin. He wants to fit himself into Otabek’s arms and stay there, burn up in his golden heat in the middle of this empty field. But the faster he runs the further away Otabek gets until he fades away completely, and Yuri stumbles, falls to the ground, grasping at the sharp ends of straw. He folds down until his forehead touches the ground, breathes in the smell of soil, and sobs. 


End file.
